Prison Hospital Ministry

Last night, I received the dreaded phone message(s) from my mother's assisted living caregivers. First: Please call us. The next: She's been taken to the emergency room after falling. I joined her, four blocks away from my house, in the hospital she gave birth to me in, an hour after the occurrence.

This is nothing new -- her crippling osteoporosis has caused many breaks, and other assorted problems have sent her to the hospital way too often. Yet much to my surprise, I found her in the emergency room hallway, waiting for a room, flanked by two young, talkative paramedics...sitting up, laughing, straining with her one working hearing aid to hear their conversations. Granted, she had become dizzy...fell to the floor, bumping her sensitive spine and then lightly bumping her head. But, other than facility protocol, why was she taken to the hospital? She seemed fine!! It seems she simply wanted to know whether or not she had broken anything in her malformed spine.

Eight hours later...3am...I brought her back home, where she certainly should have stayed in the first place. In between, she had been (possibly) examined (I missed seeing that), had blood drawn, was hooked up to EKG monitor, had a CT scan of her head ordered (why, I asked?? She hurt her back), then...a back xray, followed by an attempted IV start ("Just in case her blood work comes back indicating a need for medications and then we can get it in her right away". Like what?, I asked. "Oh, like antibiotics...etc..."). We declined that one.

Her pre-fall dizziness translated into 'passed out' on her chart. Her blood pressure (post-fall, of course...) had been astronomical (wouldn't anybody's, I wondered...), but was within normal when nobody was poking at her. I struggled to make sense of the ER drama. Results came in. CT scan showed no blood in her brain!!!! Imagine that. Back x-rays showed multiple old breaks, but it was impossible to determine if there were any new ones. Yup. When the ER doc (who aptly fits Felipe's assessment "Have you ever been to a doctor's office where they HAVEN'T tried and tried to find something wrong? Yes, I thought, whenever I presented mysterious not-feelings-well as a young woman...and all tests came back negative and I was dismissed...but I digress) caught sight of her swollen legs, he checked her blood work for a substance that would indicate she doesn't have a blood clot somewhere. After reporting that it confirmed she does not, he came and said a mistake was made on the lab report and they couldn't say for sure she doesn't. Must do a lung CT scan...inject her with dye. They came in to do the IV prep and I interiorly lost it. Called Felipe. I met him in the parking lot for a consultation. He listened, coached me. I went back in and asked the doctor who had taken over her 'case' if she was having trouble breathing (no)...were there any other things that made them suspect a clot in her lung? Just that the lung was a scary important place to pay attention to.

In the end, though she wavered and wavered, she chose to have the procedure. She waited FOREVER for a CT tech to be called in. After the scan was finally done, we waited way over an hour for results (Yay!!! She doesn't have a blood clot in her lung!!!) which happened to appear when I went out and said, geez it was taking a long time.

I asked for ibuprofen for her -- her first pain reliever in several hours, and an appropriate one for the lesser actual severity (or lack of...)... the fall. I took her home. The drive home was defined by 'youngest child' self-recriminations. Why did I get on the inner tube with her and just let the current take us away?

Extreme gratitude to Felipe, who spent at least three hours with us...following his coaching for my questions with wonderful presence...distracting my mother with wonderful conversation while I dozed off...supporting at all times...questioning when appropriate...even made tea in the doctor's lounge!!! Revealed only at the end that he had 14 hours of surgery the next day.

Did I mention supporting at all times???